


An Arm for an Arm

by peachenhun



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 13:42:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10572489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachenhun/pseuds/peachenhun
Summary: "Kindreds spirits meet in the heart of the urban tundra." Or, that's how Jongdae would label it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please enjoy!

If Jongdae were a stalker – an authentic, professional one with a high-end camera, a detailed schedule and possibly a map of covert spots to hide and observe the object of his unwanted affections – he likes to think he wouldn’t be so obvious about it.  
  
Yet he’s here again, fourth car of the 2:43 train to the housing district, pretending to tap at games on his phone while he steals glances at the tall stranger in front of him. And likely does a shit job of it.  
  
Jongdae didn’t start this on purpose.  
  
He wasn’t _looking_ for a stranger to ogle while he waited for his stop. Most days – most days before he noticed this man – he would find a seat, resting the back of his head against an uncomfortable metal bar and unwinding after uneventful day of work. As a copyeditor for a local newspaper, _every_ day at work is an uneventful day at work, so he’s spent somewhere around…four months half-asleep on the train, however long it’s been since his relocation.  
  
Then Jongdae is awake one day, excited to go home for a week of time off, excited to sleep in on the plane ride back to his hometown and drink until he embarrasses himself and everyone around him. He’s awake, and there’s a young man, tall with artificial brown hair and bright blue earbuds hanging from one ear, and he’s just…standing there, staring out the window.  
  
Around them, the unoccupied seats are plenty just minutes before rush-hour hits, but he’s standing there with his hands stuffed in the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt, no grip on the safety bars yet perfectly balanced.  
  
It’s unnerving. That’s genuinely how Jongdae feels at first – at _first._ His mother always calls him after she’s sat through a particularly intense news broadcast, worried about perilous four-way intersections and organized crime and mass thievery perpetrated by youths on public transportation, every amenity the big city has to offer.  
  
She gets to him, genetic paranoia flaring like a bad ulcer. He watches the standing man from the corner of his eye, holds his backpack tight and makes double-sure his phone is password locked because this suspicious man is a youth –  
  
A _youth!_  
  
– ready to summon a gang of lanky, acne-plagued ruffians out of thin air to rob Jongdae and the rest of the train blind. Yes, Jongdae honestly worries and doesn’t realize he’s being a dumbass until he’s skittered off the train, rummaging through his bag to check that his wallet hasn’t vanished.  
  
It hasn’t. Because the standing man never actually moved.  
  
A refreshing vacation later, Jongdae rides the train home from work and realizes he and this stranger have probably ridden the same train for a while. The stranger is likely a college student, only appearing Tuesdays and Thursdays, a single-strap backpack with a broken zipper hanging off his shoulder, worn notebooks one lurch of the train from falling to the floor. His face is pinched, brow furrowed and lips pursed like he’s eaten a citrus fruit. His shoulders are a mile wide on each side.  
  
He’s intimidating, but not immediately threatening. Jongdae’s bag is safe.  
  
At that point, the observation should’ve stopped – _should_ have.  
  
It doesn’t.  
  
Wary observation becomes unbidden curiosity, unbidden curiosity becomes shallow infatuation. The standing man, all sour face and imposing height, is incredibly handsome, and Jongdae has eyes. Even after the dullest workdays, Jongdae doesn’t rest his eyes on the train anymore. Instead, he pulls out a book to read and stares at the man. He scrolls through the pop culture feed on his phone and stares at the man. He stares at the man and stares at the man.  
  
Thus, shallow infatuation becomes amateur stalking. Amateur because Jongdae isn’t going to follow the poor fellow off the train and kidnap him or go prying for his personal profile on social media, but he’ll ogle, ogle without an ounce of shame or self-restraint. The standing man’s face is beautiful, it’s art. Art is meant to be admired. Jongdae is doing his civic duty.  
  
He’s pretty diligent about it, usually, but today is a bit different. Today is shit. He wakes up an hour late for work, skips breakfast and splashes fast-food coffee up the arm of his button-up. One of his coworkers in the sports section is out on leave and he’s given part of their workload. A headache assaults him halfway through his shift, just in time for him to fuck up and submit the _un_ edited version of a high school soccer article for printing, wasting plenty of time and resources on reprints once his error is caught. He’s good at his job so he’s reprimanded with less than a slap on the wrist, but he’s damn embarrassed.  
  
It doesn’t end after his shift wraps up. The trains are moving slower with the start of rail repairs and his 2:43 becomes a 3:17. The tsunami called rush-hour hits and by the time his train car arrives, it’s flooded with passengers. No seats free, no safety bars to grab, barely any room to breathe, and the only space he can slip his scrawny frame into is right in front of the car doors.  
  
Half a second after the doors slide shut, he notices the person in front of him is sort of familiar. Brown hair that could use a good comb, a bright blue earbud stuck in one ear, a frown that damns the world to the fiery depths of –  
  
Jongdae recoils.  
  
His favorite stranger, glaring out the window with his hands hidden in the pockets of his faded black windbreaker, is standing right in front of him. They’ve never been _this_ close before, Jongdae’s never been able to see the stranger’s plush lips and razor jawline in 4K resolution. It takes all the decency and self-preservation in Jongdae’s body to look down and occupy himself before the stranger catches him gawping.  
  
That’s how Jongdae ends up mining for silver radishes and golden pumpkins on his phone, eyes burning with the fervent _need_ to peek at the man so very close to him. It shouldn’t be on his mind right now, but his head aches, he stinks of stale dark roast, the train moves at the pace of an injured geriatric snail, and damn it, he deserves _something_ to brighten his day a little.  
  
Jongdae glances up just once, so sure he’s in the clear, and the train punishes him with a sudden lurch, kicking up speed just a fraction. His legs were already unsteady a moment ago, but without any bars to hold onto he stumbles back against the doors then pitches forward.  
  
Right into the stranger’s chest.  
  
The voices in the train drown under waves. Jongdae is dazed a little, embarrassed a lot, upset even more. Again, it seems like the world has a bone to pick with him, and Jongdae isn’t the type to subscribe to solipsism. He ignores the firmness of the stranger’s torso, the faint scent of cologne and stronger scent of sweat, and tries to right himself to save a little dignity, wherever it is.  
  
“Shit, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”  
  
An arm slung around his waist, palm at his lower back, stops him. Even with fifteen dozen passengers surrounding them, Jongdae knows it belongs to the tall stranger. The stranger’s face hasn’t budged when Jongdae checks, but his solid grip keeps Jongdae from moving away. Any other day, this would be a scene from one of his campier daydreams, but right now he would prefer wallowing in misery with his face smooshed into the door.  
  
“Um?”  
  
“You keep wobbling around. It’s making me seasick.”  
  
His voice more of an irritated nasally huffing noise than the soothing baritone Jongdae fantasized of. Jongdae doesn’t put up a fight or contest the likelihood of someone getting seasick on a train – absolutely zero percent chance. He shrinks in on himself, a defeated mollusk, and pretends the man’s stabilizing arm is more meaningful than it is, more comforting than it is. Right now, he could use it.  
  
Pitiful as it is, he’s miles away from his friends and family now that his vacation is over. He can play the role of Important City Man pretty well, slick his hair back with a jar of homemade hair gel, steam-press his pinstripe ties and paste on a mask of maturity, but that’s not Kim Jongdae. He likes smiling to people on the sidewalk and singing rock ballads while he works. When he’s sitting in the park, he wants to chat about which pond ducks are in a relationship, and when he and neighbor get home at the same time, he wants to wave goodnight.  
  
Jongdae wants to be Jongdae, but that’s not how it works anymore. There’s a new set of rules to adjust to in the city, and he’s not playing so well. Four months in and he still isn’t accustomed to being jostled by rushing passersby on the sidewalk or having his friendliest greetings met with cold indifference from frumpy cashiers. Four months in and he’s still trying to discuss baseball games with his cab drivers and gather all of his neighbors together for dinner, _c’mon guys,_ just _once._  
  
Four months in and Jongdae is _alone._  
  
It’s a foe he’s never had to combat at home, _far away_ home, but it seems like the standard when he looks at everyone else. They have cellphones for the ultimate best friends and confidants, but that doesn’t work for Jongdae. Phone calls and texts are nice and cheap and means he can avoid greeting punches from his older brother, but he’s a very physical creature. He needs hugs, cuddles, pets to rejuvenate his weary spirit and he’s not afraid to shout it to the whole fucking world.  
  
Coincidentally, he’s prohibited from going to the rooftop at his workplace.  
  
If anyone asks why his gaze drifts up into the pensive face of his stranger, his hand delicately tapping the stranger’s shoulder to get his attention, Jongdae will shout it to them as well – because _some_ one should be able to make sense of what he’s about to do, even if it isn’t him.  
  
“Uh…I don’t know how to…uh, a-ask this…”  
  
He starts off frayed, tiptoeing around social caltrops with the utmost sense of caution. The stranger’s eyes lock with his. Eloquence soars a little farther from Jongdae’s wanting grasp. He licks his dry lips and tries again.  
  
“I’m just – today has been a little – um, I-I know this isn’t…like, _normal_ , but would it be too weird if I…if I hugged you? Kind of?”  
  
Despite how debilitatingly awkward his request is and how the stranger stares with skepticism wrinkled in his brow, Jongdae isn’t hesitant once he’s said his frazzled piece. He can hold his gaze firm, knowing in the most optimistic chambers of his heart that this stranger, who braves the taboo act of touching in the city, isn’t like everyone else and might just understand him.  
  
Or at least Jongdae really hopes so.  
  
A blessing descends upon him from the skies. He’s right on the mark and the stranger discerns Jongdae isn’t just a coffee-stained creep trying to cop a feel, but a man high on desperation and low on options…who also happens to be coffee-stained. The stranger’s gaze drifts away to his favorite window and another arm circles Jongdae’s middle, hands linking loosely, securely at his lower back.  
  
Once Jongdae realizes he hasn’t been rejected, he absolutely melts, he’s living, bony putty in the young man’s warm hold. His palms spread wide over the man’s shoulder blades, his cheek nestles into the man’s broad chest, and calm funnels in grain by grain – the tension eases from his muscles, the drumming in his skull gets a little less militant, the nauseating odor of stale coffee beans is drowned out by the man’s scent.  
  
For a beautifully curt moment, miles between the business and housing districts, Jongdae is allowed solace.  
  
The superficial crush he’s been nursing should be surfacing – the portrait of him enclosed in the man’s arms is the cover of an unpublished harlequin romance novel – yet Jongdae’s palms don’t sweat, his knees don’t quake, his heart doesn’t swell and pulse a freeform jazz number through his veins. His eyes flutter shut and he feels his best friend slinging an arm over his shoulder, the walls of the karaoke room trembling from the force of their drunken ballads. He feels the bruising arms of his older brother squeezing him until his ribs fracture, comforting Jongdae the only way he knows how after Jongdae flubs the hundred-meter sprint at a high school track meet. He feels his mother coddling him to sleep when struggling against swallowing the flu medicine she spoon-feeds him tuckers his nine-year-old body out.  
  
He feels comfort, pure and unfettered, and he soaks it in.  
  
The conductor’s warbled voice pierces through the sanctuary of the man’s embrace, announcing Jongdae’s destination coming up. Slowly, reluctantly, Jongdae draws back from the young man’s hold, unable to tear his gaze away from the broken zipper on the man’s jacket because now, of all times, he’s feeling shy. Shy about unleashing his neediness on a complete stranger, shy about how much _better_ he feels now, and the train has to tremble twice more before he finds his voice. The man buries his hands back in his jacket pockets, so dauntingly casual.  
  
“So, uh…thank you, um…”  
  
“Oh Sehun.”  
  
Jongdae nods. He wasn’t waiting for a name, but it’s the least he can accept since he can’t muster the testicular strength to look the man in the eyes.  
  
“Oh Sehun. Thank you, really. I’m…I don’t –“  
  
The train screeches to a jolting stop at Jongdae’s station. He’s out of time. The doors slide open, people push past him out of the stuffy confines of the car, and he only has a second to bow his head in gratitude to Sehun before scuttling out onto the platform.  
  
At home, Jongdae burrows into his sofa in a ratty sweater and a pair of shorts, a bowl of salty cheese snacks at his hip and a remote in his hand. It’s well into the evening and his TV flashes between different nature channels.  
  
For hours, he doesn’t think of work. He doesn’t think of the train. He doesn’t think of how much he misses his family. He thinks of how much he hates pelicans, watching the rotten creatures gobble baby penguins whole and launching cheese snacks at his television screen in retaliation.  
  
When he finally crawls into bed, he falls asleep in a blink.  
  
Tuesday, the next time he and Sehun share the train, a highly unwelcomed sense of decency shackles itself around Jongdae’s ankle. The train after work is back on schedule and rush-hour is gone. Jongdae shuffles into the car, sees casually dressed Sehun standing and staring out the window, and finds a seat facing away from him.  
  
Oh Sehun is a kind soul, a good Samaritan. He’s a young saint who aided Jongdae in his hour of need, smothered Jongdae’s troubles between his oblong arms. He doesn’t deserve to be ogled like a slice of grilled pork tenderloin, Jongdae is more honorable than that –  
  
No, seriously, he is. Just never mind the past few weeks.  
  
Like he use to before Sehun’s existence permeated his easily swayed conscious, Jongdae tilts his head back and shuts his eyes, blocking out the outside world. He breathes in the quiet of the car and exhales the stress from work, falling back into his old routine.  
  
Someone clears their throat above him.  
  
Sehun is standing over him when Jongdae’s eyes snap open. His face is pensive, unfriendly as always. If Jongdae weren’t so well acquainted with that sour expression, he’d think he’s in for the ass-kicking of his life. Good God, he hopes he doesn’t deserve it.  
  
“You owe me.”  
  
Sehun lifts a pointed eyebrow at Jongdae’s bag occupying the seat between them.  
  
The train shudders through a dark tunnel and Jongdae is still gaping with the elegance of a dead trout. Processing that Sehun is here, speaking with him with his intricately molded mouth, is difficult enough, but wait, he _owes_ Sehun? Not that Jongdae isn’t willing to pay up, but what could he possibly have to exchange for a hug? What’s the going rate for cuddle therapy these days and, more importantly, can he afford it without reducing his food budget to convenient store noodles and rain water?  
  
Sehun rolls his eyes, his patience for Jongdae’s brain short-circuit worn away shortly.  
  
“Move your bag.”  
  
Direct orders, Jongdae can handle. He scrambles to push his backpack to the floor between his feet and Sehun claims the spot, setting his own bag off to the side. There’s some shuffling, Jongdae watching curiously while Sehun finds the right angle for his longs legs to be comfortable, then he leans over and cradles his cheek against Jongdae’s shoulder, brown hair tickling Jongdae’s neck and jaw.  
  
It’s baffling, very sudden, but it means Sehun probably isn’t waiting for a check written out to him. Jongdae’s wallet breathes a relieved sigh.  
  
A few moments with Sehun glued to him is all Jongdae needs to realize how selfish he was last week, how shortsighted he’d been submerged in a pool of overwrought misery. He wanted like hell to believe Sehun was someone like him, someone who found strength in the touch of others and couldn’t find that wellspring in the city, yet that never translated to him figuring out that, hey, maybe Sehun was in the same rundown dinghy as him.  
  
The arm that kept him from falling, Jongdae hadn’t seen it as more than a friendly gesture, an invitation to ask for more. He’d taken, absorbed and replenished his own energy, but he hadn’t been the only one in need of a shot of physical caffeine that day.  
  
Of course – no one gets _sea_ sick on a train.  
  
So he understands when Sehun’s arm coils around his back, and he doesn’t mind when he’s tugged closer so Sehun’s hands can link around his waist. Sehun’s height doesn’t really agree with Sehun’s preferred cuddling position – he clearly doesn’t realize he’s built to be the big spoon – but Jongdae throws his arm over Sehun’s shoulder and he adjusts.  
  
Their bodies fit together naturally, unexplainably so for near strangers. They did the first they hugged and they do now. It should be awkward; their embrace is intimate under the scrutiny of anyone else in the train car, yet Jongdae is so terribly comfortable and so happy to return Sehun’s favor that everyone else can, well, fuck off.  
  
“I think…I haven’t changed. Not as much as I wanted to.”  
  
Sehun is suddenly speaking, low grumbling under his breath that Jongdae almost misses. Jongdae looks down, but he can’t see Sehun’s eyes. They hadn’t spoken at all when Jongdae hugged him, but he doesn’t mind if it’ll perk Sehun up. Talking is one of Jongdae’s most persistently annoying skills, after all.  
  
“Who’re you changing from?”  
  
“…a punk. A kid with a shit attitude about everything. Everyone.”  
  
“And who’s that kid trying to change into?”  
  
“…my aunt – I live with her now. She helped me get into a decent school. I barely know her, but she has so much faith in me and she helps me so much. I don’t why. I don’t want to let her down.”  
  
“Why do you think you’re going to, then?”  
  
“I never know what I’m doing in class. I show up, I take notes and study like hell, but I’m lucky to make average marks. That’s how it was in high school, how it is now. It’s so…ugh, I thought I could show I’m different now y’know?”  
  
“Mm. But it’s just your aunt you want to do better for?”  
  
“I don’t know. My parents too, I guess. Anyone who knew the old me. And myself?”  
  
“Yourself?”  
  
“Yeah. I didn’t want to be an asshole when I was at – when I was younger. I just was. It’s like…you know how you randomly remember embarrassing stuff you did, like, ages ago and cringe?”  
  
“Like accidentally calling your track coach mom?”  
  
“Wha?”  
  
“Oh, uh. Nothing.”  
  
“ _Riiight._ Well, it’s like that for me, but ten times worse. I want to bury it.”  
  
“Hm…speaking as a total stranger, I think you’ve changed plenty. At least from what you’ve told me. And I can be pretty smart about these things sometimes.”  
  
“Pf, what do you know?”  
  
“Hah, I mean, I could be way off base here, but it sounds like the old you, the Evil Sehun, wouldn’t have set goals like this, yeah?”  
  
“…”  
  
“And he probably wouldn’t have cared about letting anyone down, or even worried about school to begin with. Am I right?”  
  
“I don’t know. I guess.”  
  
“If you ask me, I think you’re sweating the wrong stuff. Not that the results are important too, but the effort you’re giving is what separates you from Evil Sehun. Effort points are actually helpful, see?”  
  
“Effort points?”  
  
“Never mind.”  
  
“Huh. You’re weird.”  
  
“A little.”  
  
“Hm. Your stop’s coming up.”  
  
Sure enough, Jongdae sees the name of his station approaching outside the window, an apathetic emissary from the real world reminding him of where he’s supposed to be. Only a few minutes has passed to Jongdae, sheltered in a sphere formed of soft whispers of words and the warmth of Sehun’s body entangling his, yet already it’s shattered to hell.  
  
His contentment fractures much the same, disappointment keeping him adhered to Sehun’s side as the train slows to a pause. But it has to end, he has to unlatch his arm from Sehun’s shoulders and grab his bag, has to knock knees with Sehun as he shuffles into the aisle, into the frigid train interior that was a hearth just moments ago.  
  
But Kim Jongdae doesn’t isn’t the type to leave without a fight – as long as he isn’t in danger of catching a fist to the nose.  
  
Somehow, spending a train ride talking with Sehun has been one of the most pleasant experiences he’s had since moving to the city, even better than teaching a duck to sit for a stale cracker at the community pond. There’s someone behind him who feels, wants the same as him, someone out of place unafraid to share his woes and shove a good dose PDA into the nondescript faces of the unfeeling urban masses. He’d be a massive fool to bury his aggressively outgoing tendencies _now_ with an opportunity sitting behind him and glaring at his back.  
  
There’s a friend sitting right behind him, and Jongdae isn’t letting him go.  
  
He centers every dreg of courage left in his woefully tiny body into his vocal cords, turning back to Sehun with determination etched on his face in boldly drawn lines. From the amused lift of Sehun’s eyebrow, the moment is every bit as dramatic as Jongdae hopes.  
  
“Listen. If you ever want to talk again –“  
  
Sehun interrupts him, swipes the thunder right out of Jongdae’s hand and waves him toward open door of the train. He’s smiling, soft and easy and unfamiliar. Jongdae hesitates, then he smiles as well.  
  
“Next time. I’ll be here.”


End file.
